


Homework

by Hours_Gone_By



Series: Prowl x Jazz Hallowe'en Challenge 2019 [3]
Category: The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One), Transformers Generation One, Transformers – All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe – Supernatural, Community: prowlxjazz, Community: whatif-au, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cursed Play, Curses, Dating, Developing Relationship, Falling In Love, Family, Holding Hands, Homework, Horror, Kissing, Legends, M/M, Magical Artifacts, Magical Cauldrons, Making Out, References to Macbeth, References to The King in Yellow, Research, Siblings, Statistical Analysis, Theatre, plays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-23 18:20:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21085742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hours_Gone_By/pseuds/Hours_Gone_By
Summary: Prowl, Jazz, and Bluestreak spend an evening hanging out, watching a movie, and helping Bluestreak with his homework: learning lines from a play that's allegedly cursed.Takes place afterReplayandGhost Stories.





	Homework

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [The Prowl x Jazz Community](https://prowlxjazz.dreamwidth.org)'s [Halloween Bingo 2019](https://prowlxjazz.dreamwidth.org/1745822.html#comments) on [Dreamwidth](https://prowlxjazz.dreamwidth.org) and used for the [What If? AU Challenge's](https://whatif-au.dreamwidth.org) October 2019 [Supernatural AU challenge](https://whatif-au.dreamwidth.org/tag/challenge31), and the [Spooktober Challenge (Prompt: legend).](https://spooktoberchallenge.dreamwidth.org/732.html)

Prowl had met Jazz when the mech had moved into the house across the street from his own, just under a deca-cycle earlier. They'd met, flirted innocently after Jazz had borrowed the use of Prowl's comm, and then things had taken a hard left turn when Jazz's house turned out to be haunted.

Jazz and his mentor's house, really, though Half-step hadn't moved in yet. Half-step, at least, wouldn't move into a haunted house. Prowl and Jazz had found the body of a murder victim hidden behind the back wall of the house and the rear acid rain shutters and the haunting had ceased.

Prowl was happy for Jazz's sake when he learned Half-step was due to arrive in two cycles, but he was going to regret the loss of their privacy. Prowl lived with his creator and a younger sibling who hadn't quite figured out a locked door meant 'go away' instead of 'bang on it and yell until Prowl answers.' Jazz lived alone, for now. That gave them an entire house to fool around in, and they made the most of it. They hadn't interfaced yet, but now, coming down from a shuddering tactile overload at Jazz's hands, Prowl thought he might offer soon. But for right now, he made sure to give Jazz an overload of his own.

"Damn, you've got good hands, babe," Jazz said contentedly afterward, head on Prowl's shoulder as they cuddled on the couch one day. Prowl still had a few breems left before Bluestreak came home, and he'd promised to spend time with his sibling that afternoon and evening. "You'll have found all my sweet spots soon."

"I think you're exaggerating," Prowl told him, though he was pleased to hear it.

"Nope. You pay attention to what you're doing, and you think it through. You're a good lover, babe." When Prowl hesitated just a little too long before replying, Jazz hugged Prowl tighter and nuzzled him gently. "Uh oh, think I'm hearing the echo of the other guy."

"Mm. Maybe a little bit. I didn't get much feedback in that regard from him – we didn't do anything this intimate. In retrospect, that was for the best."

"Yeah, sounds it." Jazz lifted his head and gave Prowl a quick kiss. "He didn't deserve you. Remind me to kick this guy's tail if I ever meet him."

Prowl smiled, warmly, at his lover. "I just might do that."

Prowl didn't want to leave, but he had promised Bluestreak time today, and his sibling was due home from school.

"Maybe you could come back later tonight? Stay the night, maybe?" Jazz suggested, kissing Prowl's fingers over and over. "Nothing's gotta happen, but I'd like to have you close."

"I don't know," Prowl said. "Creator's been able to pick up extra joors at work lately, and I don't know when he'll be back yet. You could come to stay with me instead? That _really _means nothing would happen because Bluestreak has appalling timing when he wants something, but having you close would be nice."

"Chase," Prowl's creator, "won't mind?"

"Creator already told me it was alright, with conditions." Not that Prowl had particularly needed to be told 'don't get distracted interfacing while your sibling might need you.'

"Okay," Jazz said, looking pleased. "Think I'll do that. Just like being near you, y'know?"

"I like being near you, too."

Prowl kissed Jazz again and kept kissing him until he was very nearly late to meet Bluestreak coming home. In fact, he was just leaving Jazz's house, with Jazz walking him home to extend their time when the school convoy pulled up in front of Prowl's home to drop Bluestreak off. Bluestreak saw them and trotted across the street.

"Hi Jazz, hi Prowl," he said, looking at Prowl. "Did you forget you were taking me to the racetrack today?"

"I didn't forget, Bluestreak," Prowl reassured him. "I just lost track of time a little bit."

"Mm. Okay. But we're still going, right?"

"We're still going." Prowl leaned over and kissed Jazz, just a quick thing to tide them over. "I'll see you tonight."

"Sorry, Jazz." Bluestreak did, to Prowl's surprise, sound entirely sincere.

"It's okay, kiddo," Jazz said, patting Bluestreak on the shoulder. "I know you two want to spend time together. It's cool. I'll see you later, okay?"

"Yeah." Bluestreak glanced at Prowl. "Maybe – you could come over for dinner? I mean, Prowl and I were just gonna watch a movie this evening. I guess it'd be okay if you were there."

Jazz looked at Prowl, checking in. Prowl nodded.

"Well, okay, sure, Bluestreak. I gotta practise now, but I'll be over around dinnertime, okay?" Bluestreak agreed, and Jazz gave Prowl's hand a squeeze. "I'll see you two tonight then."

"Until tonight, then." Prowl gave Jazz a quick kiss goodbye and put an arm around Bluestreak's shoulders while they walked across the road. Prowl wanted to make sure Bluestreak got a snack before they went racing. "Thank you for offering to include Jazz, Bluestreak."

"Yeah, well, you're getting all serious with him, so…"

Prowl thought that over for a few nano-kliks then said gently, "Bluestreak, you know that no matter what happens between Jazz and me, I'm still committed to the Academy. I'm still leaving."

"Yeah, I know. I still wish you didn't have to go."

"I know, little spark."

Fuel and racing cheered Bluestreak up, and he was back to his usual self by the time they got back to the house. Prowl talked him into helping make treats for dessert, and that was good, too. They'd used to do this back in Praxus and Prowl hoped it would make for as good a memory of being together here as it did of being together back home.

During dinner, Jazz made sure to include Bluestreak in the conversation, which Prowl appreciated. Jazz also praised the treats and Prowl appreciated that as well. Bluestreak was definitely coming around to seeing Jazz as more than 'the threat I have to time with Prowl.'

"Can we watch a movie now?" Bluestreak asked when dinner was finished.

"Do you have any homework?" Prowl asked right back.

Bluestreak shrugged in a way that suggested he was trying to dodge doing it, but at least he'd voluntarily started to clear the table. "A little? I just gotta read through one short thing."

"How short?"

"Ten pages? It's not even a story. We've gotta put on a scene from this old play," Bluestreak said. "Every grade has to do one part of it. At least our scene is kinda cool."

"Which play, is it?" Jazz asked.

"_Censere's Cauldron_. We have the part where the hero's lover puts him in the cauldron, and he comes back to life."

"Yeah? There's an old performer's legend about that one. Supposed to be cursed."

Of course, that got Bluestreak's attention.

"What kind of curse?" Bluestreak wanted to know, sitting back down.

"Well, you can't say the name of the play in a theatre when the play's being performed, or something will go wrong with the production," Jazz told him. "You call it 'the Hyperian play' since that's where it takes place. Plus, there's supposed to be a couple of scenes missing. Not just because stuff gets lost or cut over time, but because if they were performed, something terrible would happen."

"Like what?" Bluestreak asked, fascinated.

Jazz shrugged. "No one knows for sure what happened, just what was left – or wasn't. See, the audience would be found dead in their seats, faceplates locked in configurations of fear liked they'd been scared offline and the actors? Well, they'd just be nowhere. Disappeared, along with the sets and props and everything and no one would ever see 'em again."

"What about the audience member's datatrax from right before they died?" Bluestreak asked. "Didn't anyone review them?"

"Good question, kiddo," Jazz said approvingly. "Yeah, they tried, but even though the audience's internal clock went offline when they died part-way through the play, the datatrax from the point they went into the auditorium to then were just – gone. Blank. Like they hadn't experienced anything."

"Nothing at all?"

"Nope. Not a single thing."

"Wow," Bluestreak breathed. "And…those scenes are lost, right? No one can put them on by accident?"

"Totally lost," Jazz reassured him. "It's just a play with a creepy story attached without 'em. Perfectly safe for adolescents to put on at school."

"Did it really happen, though? Or is it just a story?"

"Whether it did or not," Prowl put in, "is a question for another time. I don't want you having nightmares tonight."

"I didn't have nightmares after the ghost stories."

"Yes, well, let's make sure you _keep_ not having nightmares, alright?"

"But - !"

"Hey, Bluestreak," Jazz broke in. "You got your class's scene with you? Prowl and I can help you run lines, okay?"

"Run lines?" Bluestreak was immediately distracted by the new term, and Jazz drew him skilfully into a conversation about acting terminology. It was technically Bluestreak's turn to clear the table, but Prowl rose and cleared it himself. No matter what happened between himself and Jazz with regards to their relationship, Jazz and Bluestreak were still going to be neighbours. They needed to get along.

'_You're good with him,_' Prowl told Jazz over comms, from the kitchen.

'_Thanks. So are you._'

Prowl didn't expect running lines – which turned out to be just reciting them as an aid to memorization – to take long. Bluestreak could be easily distracted and sometimes rambled, but he was quite intelligent and capable of focusing intently when he wanted to. Jazz had managed to get him interested in something that had just been a boring school assignment and Prowl expected Bluestreak would want to focus now. He was pleased to see he was right, and Bluestreak wasn't just learning to recite lines by rote but putting effort into his delivery as well as consideration into the text.

"Hey, Prowl," Bluestreak said, frowning down at his tablet. "When you read the part where the hero's put in the cauldron and re-sparked, does it read kind of weird to you?"

"I haven't gotten that far yet." Prowl might have been a little distracted by listening to Jazz. "What do you mean by 'weird?'"

"You know." Bluestreak made a vague gesture. "Weird. Like, the words don't match the other words."

Prowl read it through, analyzing. Bluestreak was right.

"Someone changed the scene," Prowl said, looking at Jazz. "Perhaps even added it after the play was completed. It doesn't have the same pattern to the words as the rest of the play, not quite. I would say it's even by a different author."

"Why?" Bluestreak asked.

"Lots of reasons, kiddo. Changing tastes, censorship, trying to make the play work better. _Or…_" Jazz paused dramatically. "Maybe because the legend is _true_."

"I'm gonna look it up," Bluestreak decided.

"I thought you wanted to watch a movie," Prowl reminded him. For himself, Prowl was perfectly happy not knowing if an auditorium full of people had been slaughtered.

"I can do both. I'll just link up to my tablet. You're not the only one who can do more than one thing at once."

Bluestreak did not yet have the capability to remote-link to the DataNet. That would come later, as a sort of mini-upgrade shortly before his full adult upgrades. Linking up to the tablet would let him use its capabilities to search while still keeping him under the restrictions Chase had put on his DataNet usage.

"How many things can you do at once, Prowler?" Jazz asked, interested.

"A very high amount, variable depending on how much processing power the tasks require."

"Like eight hundred!" Bluestreak put in. He looked at his sibling, fondly. "Prowl's a genius."

"Yeah?"

"I score very highly on intelligence tests, yes."

"Perfect scores," Bluestreak corrected, obviously proud on Prowl's behalf. "What? I pay attention."

"If you're done with your homework, pick out a movie, please," Prowl said firmly.

"Yeah, fine." Bluestreak switched on the entertainment unit and started to search. "Creator's locked most of the good ones, though."

"And they're staying locked."

"Perfect scores on intelligence tests?" Jazz murmured. "Every time?"

Prowl looked away. "Yes."

"Hey, Prowler." Jazz, still speaking softly, gently turned Prowl's chin so the mech was looking at him. "I love it that you're that smart. You don't have to hide who you are from me, ever."

"Jazz, I – "

"He just gets embarrassed cause he used to get teased about it," Bluestreak said matter-of-factly. He looked over at them. "What? I just _said _I can pay attention to more than one thing at once. If you didn't want me to hear, you shouldn't be doing that when I'm sitting right next to you."

Prowl resisted the urge to cover his optics with his hand. "Please tell me you've picked something out."

"Yeah."

Bluestreak's pick was a movie he and Prowl both enjoyed, even if they hadn't watched it together in a while, a version of Adaptus bringing the transformation ability to the ancient Cybertronians. Bluestreak split his attention between the film and his research. Prowl split his attention between the movie, Bluestreak, and Jazz.

"I didn't find anything about murders, and the play besides the legend Jazz told me," Bluestreak said finally, as the movie's credits rolled. "I even went to the third page of results. So, either it didn't happen, or it doesn't get searched often enough to show up, or I can't find it because of my access level."

"I think it probably just didn't happen," Prowl said calmly. "But you can search it again when you're older, and you have a better access level."

"Yeah, I guess." Bluestreak pushed himself up off the couch. "Anyway, I'm gonna go to bed. 'Night."

"Goodnight, Bluestreak."

"'Night, kiddo."

Bluestreak didn't go straight to bed: Prowl could hear the wash racks running. So long as he went soon, Prowl didn't see any reason to remind him.

"So," Jazz began, "think the play really is cursed or is it just a legend?"

Prowl had run the same search Bluestreak had, only Prowl _did _have full DataNet access. "Incidents have occurred during performances of _Censere's Cauldron,_ and there are a disproportionate number of media reports about it. There is a small bump in the pure statistics, but that can be explained by the play's reputation making mecha more likely to report accidents or things that appear strange on the surface. I won't rule it out," considering that hauntings were real curses might be too, "but without evidence, I still have my doubts."

Jazz twisted on the couch so he could face Prowl more fully. "If I tell you it's really attractive how smart you are, are you gonna think I'm teasing you?"

"No. Not you," Prowl answered.

Jazz lifted Prowl's hand and pressed a kiss to the palm. "Good, 'cause it is. You're just an all-around amazing mech, Prowler. I mean, first you're hot, and then you're brave and then I find out you're super smart as well? Yeah, Bluestreak's not the only one who's going to miss you real bad when you leave."

"I'll miss you too," Prowl told him. "So much. At least we'll have comms?"

Jazz nodded. "Yeah, we will. Know what else?"

"What?"

Jazz smiled and pressed their forehelms together.

"Musicians travel."


End file.
